GONAIVES, Haiti -- Hundreds of people fled this waterlogged city Saturday for higher ground as powerful Hurricane Ike threatened to unleash heavy rain and compound a disaster caused by a previous storm. Food was distributed to famished residents, including to emaciated inmates at the local jail.

A Haitian man unloads water donated by the World Food Program at a private port after Tropical Storm Hanna passed through the region dumping heavy rains that flooded the entire region leaving at least 136 dead and thousands stranded in Gonaives September 5, 2008.  [Agencies]

"We are very concerned about Ike," she said. "Any bit more of rain and Gonaives will be cut off again."

Police Commissioner Ernst Dorfeuille said on Saturday that a news report the previous evening that quoted him as saying 495 bodies had been found in Gonaives from Tropical Storm Hanna was completely wrong. He said there were 32 confirmed deaths in this city on Haiti's west coast from the storm that hit on Monday.

Ike, a Category 4 hurricane, was expected to skirt northern Haiti late Saturday and Sunday.

Wesley Sijuen, a 28-year-old father of twins and a 3-year-old son, trudged through heavy mud with seven of his relatives to reach a convent at a nearby mountaintop. His brother-in-law, 28-year-old Jean Emmanuel, said numerous Haitians were fleeing Gonaives.

"Everyone is trying to save themselves," Emmanuel said.

One gray-haired woman left on the back of a motorbike, balancing a bucket of silverware, glasses and other kitchen items on her head.